Can the Cannabis Industry Become a Leader in Environmental Sustainability?

April 6, 2020

NCIA's Environmental Committee report on “Environmental Impacts, Best Management Practices, and Policies for the Cannabis Industry” discusses the impacts that cannabis has on the environment and society, exploring new fields and practices by addressing corresponding policies.¹

The marijuana industry competes with a well-established, cheaper, and unregulated illegal market that causes unpredictable fluctuations. Research firm New Frontier Data estimates that nearly "80% of the cannabis sold in California comes from the unregulated market [and] that the state’s illicit marijuana market is worth $3.7 billion."²

Before 2018, California’s illegal market cultivators utilized toxic pesticides and rodenticides that contaminated the ecosystem and consumers. "Since the establishment of cannabis testing in 2018, cannabis contamination dropped from 24% to 3% within months of the implementation of state-mandate." ³

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act is a federal law that regulates solid and hazardous waste concerning generation, transportation, treatment, storage, and disposal. However, as the legal market meets the sustainable practice to reduce and recycle, the illicit market’s contributions to waste accumulation will be minimized as it dissolves.⁴

Cannabis should be tested and regulated at the federal level to eliminate the current unsupervised environmental impacts of the illegal market. As sustainable agriculture becomes an increasing priority globally, the newly- emerging legal cannabis industry provides an opportunity to adopt best management practices at the outset that can serve as a model for farming practices that regenerate, rather than degrade, the land that all life depends on.

NCIA's report provides a review of sustainable cannabis cultivation management practices and the respective policies on soil and land use, water reduction and conservation, energy generation and consumption, air quality, and the challenges associated with waste. Methods and research addressed, emphasize that the cannabis industry has the opportunity to establish industry standards and operating procedures that engage with the environment in sustainable and respectful ways that serve finite resources.

1. NCIA Policy Council, Environmental Sustainability In The Cannabis Industry: Impacts, Best Management Practices, and Policy Considerations, NCIA (October 2020), https://thecannabisindustry.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/NCIA-Environmental-Policy-BMP-October-17-final.pdf

2. Kevin Murphy, Cannabis’ Black Market Problem, Forbes (April 4, 2019), https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinmurphy/2019/04/04/cannabis-black-market-problem/#65955b2e134f

3. Ben Adlin, Can Washington Fix Its Broken Cannabis Lab Testing System? Leafly (June 17, 2019), https://www.leafly.com/news/industry/can- washington-fix-its-broken-cannabis-lab-testing-system

4. United States Environmental Protection Agency, Summary of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, EPA (september 28, 2021), https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-resource-conservation-and-recovery-act